Conor P. McGowan, Ph.D.
Assistant Leader and Assistant Research Professor
USGS, Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences,
Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849-5418

cmcgowan@usgs.gov

cmcgowan@auburn.edu
Ph: 334 844 9231

Research interests

My work focuses on conservation and management decision support science. I work primarily on endangered species and birds, especially shorebirds, using the tools of population and ecological modeling to predict the effects of management actions on populations of interest.

Current Projects

- Multispecies adaptive management in Delaware Bay

- Incidental take and endangered species recovery

- Piping plover population viability

- White tailed deer and coyote management in south Alabama

- Grassland bird habitat management in the East Gulf Coastal Plain

- American Black Duck integrated population and habitat management

Graduate Students

Current

Ally Keever, MS – working on deer and coyote management in southern Alabama

Jennifer Price, PhD – State wide white-tailed deer monitoring and population modeling

Emily Merritt, MS – Horseshoe Crab mark-recapture based abundance estimation

Patrick Farrell, MS – Grassland bird habitat associations in the East Gulf Coastal Plain

Claudia Penaloza, Post-doc – Black Duck survival modeling and population modeling

Completed

Alyssa Butler, MS – worked on Horseshoe Crab Tag loss and survival estimation

Recent Publications

McGowan, C.P., 2013. A structured approach to incidental take decision making. Environmental Management 51:241–250

McGowan, C.P., J.E. Hines, J.D. Nichols, J.E. Lyons, D.R. Smith, K. S. Kalasz, L.J. Niles, A.D. Dey, N.A. Clark, P.W. Atkinson, C.D.T. Minton, and W. Kendall. 2011. Demographic consequences of migratory stopover: linking red knot survival to horseshoe crab spawning abundance. Ecosphere 2: art 69.

McGowan, C.P., M. C. Runge, M. A. Larson, 2011. Incorporating parametric uncertainty into population viability models. Biological Conservation 144, 1400-1408. [R-Code webpage]

McGowan, C.P., M.R. Ryan, M.C. Runge, J.J. Millspaugh, J. Cochrane, 2011. The role of demographic compensation theory in incidental take assessments for endangered species. Biological Conservation, in press.

McGowan, C.P., D.R. Smith, J. Sweka, et al. 2011. Multispecies modeling for adaptive management of horseshoe crabs and red knots in the Delaware Bay. Natural Resource Modeling, in press.

McGowan, C. P., and M. R. Ryan. 2010. Arguments for using population models in incidental take assessments for endangered species. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management 1: 183-188.

McGowan, C. P., and M. R. Ryan. 2009, A quantitative framework to evaluate incidental take and endangered species population viability. Biological Conservation, 142: 3128–3136.

Links

USGS Cooperative Research Units

Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

School of Forestry and Wildlife Science

Auburn University